Resonance
by Soul of Ashes
Summary: A collection of Dante and Cole Macgrath interactions that hint at a relationship that both of them may not be entirely prepared to embrace. Dante's a wild card and Cole Macgrath can't stand the thought of getting close to anyone else after Trish.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Without further adieu, I present my newest obsession. Because I like pairing Dante with random people, here's some random one-shots I started writing last night. Dante Sparda from DMC and Cole Macgrath from Infamous. I only played the 2nd game, so don't judge me. And it's gay as rainbows, so don't even start with me. It's safe for work (so far).

* * *

He decided, _I think I like this guy_. But that was long before they collapsed in a heap after a deadly car chase that had ruined four city blocks in the wake of a monstrous battle. Cole's chest was heaving as he caught his breath, patches of sweat making his white-and-blue shirt cling to his skin, his eyes vivid with adrenaline as he looked at the devil hunter next to him. Dante hardly seemed winded but he had caught that excitement, that thrill, and Dante thought maybe Cole decided he liked him too. They were grinning at each other like fools and Cole had slapped him on the shoulder with a shock of heat that made him rub his shoulder after thoughtfully and every night after that.

Cole had only a few years to get used to what he was. A Conduit with the power of the gods at his command. Dante had been a half-demon since the day he was born. If Dante could command any element it was fire. Adaptable, hungry, insatiable.

Cole tipped back a beer, watching the interplay of light and shadow on the clever little television set. He wasn't really watching. His head was craned aside, tight corded muscles relaxed as his legs splayed open and he put his feet up. Dante thought his shoes were nice - a neat addition to help him navigate and jump and dash, like his body truly was arcing electricity from one point to the next. Right here, right now, he saw not electric man and no Demon. He was flesh and blood and he could see it clearly in the dim light gleaming off his damp skin.

Suddenly their eyes met. Dante drank from his glass bottle, didn't break the gaze. Cole grinned a little. His voice was like sandpaper and Dante could listen to read War and Peace all night. "Can't stand this show either, huh?"

The news. Showing the pair of them facing off against an enormous boss creature easily the size of one of the buildings they were driving past. It had been harrowing - a bloody, terrorizing ordeal. But they'd come out alive and it was weeks ago but they still liked to play the same clips over and over again.

"You'd think they'd get nicer looking guys to play the heroes," Dante said, and before his fool mouth could correct itself, he added lazily, "I like the blue guy better. He's got a down-home kinda look. Approachable. Tattoos are nice." He gulped down a swallow of his drink, hard. "Not bad."

Cole squinted. Out of the corner of his eye, Dante saw the flex of his jaw as he tried to work the words around in his mind. Consider from what perspective they came from. There were tiny scars, Dante noticed, trailing all over his shaven head that showed through the short buzzed hair gleaming in the TV's lurid glow. One in particular that was nasty, right on his face. He wanted to ask about it.

"I think the guy in blue looks like some kind of escaped convict." Cole leaned back, breaking that gaze. "But, uh," he coughed, "you're entitled to your own opinion, I guess."

"Okay. I will." Dante smirked, feeling his face heating up as he sipped the remaining, disappointingly small droplet of beer. By that point, he busied himself by peering near the bottom as if he'd find the next thing to say.

* * *

Cole had adapted to the role of superhero quite well. Dante didn't always agree with his choices. And sometimes the yelling matches were ugly. But in the end, he had to concede that Cole had to make these choices himself, otherwise he would always live with this kind of self-doubt. Dante had a hard time remembering that not everyone was imbued with that kind of self-assured outlook. He knew Cole needed no guidance. He could leap from building to building. Call forth the white fire from the heavens if he wanted to. He could practically fucking fly.

He wasn't afraid of anything except his naturally occurring nemesis, water.

The man had a right to be afraid of it. Dante found this out earlier on when they'd first met. Dante hadn't quite worked out how they would start working together - the demons being the work of a Conduit who could tap into the (unfortunately) natural energies of Hell, rip open holes and let the little bastards spill forth. And only another conduit could find this conduit - because they could use the same corridors in Hell to traverse through space, escaping notice. Cole had been reluctant to let Dante work alongside him - he was better off alone, he'd snarled with a furrowed brow. "Demon hunter or not. Just stay out of my way, all right?"

The town had been flooded; a dam had broken after a strategic attack on its infrastructure. Water gushed into every street, forcing people out into their homes in make-shift and rubber rafts.

Dante forged ahead. He hadn't seen which way Cole had gone. But he had to find the major demon that had broken the dam, kill it, and make sure its lackeys were also slain before assessing any further damage. And besides, that was the government's job.

Except the demons had flooded the town too; aquatic little monstrosities with fierce, poison-tipped barbs that flicked with deadly accuracy for his limbs. They managed just fine on solid ground, too - and that's what Cole found out when one of them gripped him by his shirt and threw him headlong into the muddied eddying pool.

Dante saw the flashes of electricity from a block away. He was bounding across soggy, slick roof-tops, knowing with a sinking feeling in his gut who it was. He saw the shaven-headed man caught up in a powerful current, arcs and cracks and jagged serpents of white fire crackling all around him, and the serpentine demons knifing through the rapids to reach him before Dante had already made up his mind and thrown himself in after.

Blood turned the water dark, then frothy as slippery demonic bodies fought to push in for the kill. Poison barbed pierced his jacket and stung his flesh, turning his body against him. With sluggish, powerful sweeps of his arms he dove down, stunned by the impossibly strong volts lurching through his arm, and made for the nearest soggy shore.

He was smoking. His entire body felt numb. He felt better as he deposited Cole's unconscious body, smoking as well, and so very still and pale, onto the shore. He turned to face off with the fishy monstrosities, their impossibly jagged, long fangs already red with his and Cole's blood.

With halting breaths, Dante clamped his hands onto Agni and Rudra and pulled them forth. Fire and wind. He would roast these motherfuckers until they were nothing but charred husks steaming on the grass.

When the last of them had fallen, sectioned into sushi-sized chunks with a final breathtaking flourish, Dante thrust the blades into their sheaths in mid-fall as he sank beside the Conduit's prone form. He rolled him onto his back, just as the man spat a lungful of water and started coughing, his hand clawing blindly at Dante's sleeve.

When a clear, easy breath wasn't in between two minutes of coughing, Dante sat back with a scowl, clearly displeased and with no reason to be this angry. No reason to have felt that scared before.

Because whether or not Cole wanted it, they were working together from this point on. When Cole wiped the water from his eyes and met that chilly stubborn look with a weary, withered glance, he knew he was going to have to put up with it.

Dante pulled him to his feet.

"Thanks."

Dante felt his anger at the stubborn man dwindle. Now it was just irritation. He rolled his eyes. "Wouldn't have happened if you'd listened to me to begin with."

Cole narrowed his eyes. Then something seemed to click into place with a painful clarity and he spent a moment to wring out his shirt. Fingers of white energy crawled up along his body.

"Only next time, let me know when you want to go for a swim." Dante watched the energy for a moment longer before he turned his back, not letting himself become too mesmerized. He was just a human. A Conduit was just a human, all the same. He could die, like any other man. "Ready to go back over there?"

"Yeah." Cole joined him near the bank. His fingers flexed convulsively, an anxious movement as he balaned on one foot, then the other, gauging the jump. Dante chanced to look; for a moment the hardened, stubborn man seemed to show his first traces of fear, eying the surface of the water and the monsters that might lay within it.

"Hey."

Cole looked at him. Naked terror danced in his eyes.

"I won't let them grab you and I won't let you fall in. Just stay close."

Cole slowly nodded. Then he leapt, his hands making its own electric propulsion as he moved and landed lightly on the nearest rooftop. Then he was sprinting, keeping a short lead as Dante followed him, toward the monster heedlessly stomping on buildings in the distance.

* * *

His fingertips were talented. They could scorch anything without him even thinking about it. But he'd had practice - practice for months, over a year. His touch could illustrate how much he liked you or how far up on his shit list you were. But for now, all Dante knew was how good they could feel.

He closed his eyes and felt them in his hair. A nasty lump on the back of his head swelled to the size of a goose egg, but when Macgrath's touch found it, he couldn't feel anything but a thrill of electricity, a humming in his bones that was almost pleasant. His eyes closed and his wounds seared closed. The pain didn't bother him. Cole almost found it disturbingly intimate, the way Dante took his powers in stride and let him touch him without a hint of fear.

Without fear. Without a wince of pain or a touch of doubt.

For about the hundredth time they looked at each other, communicating - _what?_ - but he knew his touch felt good from the way Dante's lips curved into a half-smirk, that lazy smile that pulled one from Cole's scarred face, too.

He knew it felt good when Dante's fingers curled into small fists, as if trying to hold back. That happened so much more often. How challenging it must have been for the impulsive youth in a man's body.

Cole realized how close they'd become. Dante's hands clenched at his sides with almost white-knuckled focus and the smile had been replaced with a different look - confusion, even something close to irritation.

_Why?_

Cole's fingers were still tangled in his hair, his body craned forward on his knees. A gentle static hummed from his fingertips, and he pulled his hands away. In a whiplash of motion, Dante caught his right hand with his left, spreadig his fingers open and letting the touch resume, palm to open palm.

Cole let it continue. A slow drain, a pull forward.

A sharp inhale.

Cole's eyes narrowed distrustfully before he pulled back again, closing his fingers and laying his hands on his knees.

"Thanks," Dante mumbled. Almost tiredly.

Cole nodded slow, minding where and how his limbs were arranged. Suddenly he wasn't sure if he wanted to touch Dante right this moment.

"No problem, man."


	2. Lost

The demons collapsed, imploding in clouds of thick choking dust. Arcing energy spiderwebbed across the floor as the Demon of Empire City landed from above. Having scaled the wall from the outside, he'd dropped down in the enclosed arena where demons had gathered. Bits of broken glass hailed down around him as the reaching white fingers of fire retracted, spitting sparks as it latched onto anything electronic within reach.

Cole MacGrath returned the Amp to its clasp across his back as his sinuous form rose from the small crater in the floor; emotionless gray eyes swept the interior of the room, and all he could see was the dust of fallen demons. His gaze swiveled to the doorway - it was busted ajar, swinging on a frail hinge, the wooden carvings depicting demons in various articulations of agony or pleasure. Or both. He wrinkled his nose and nudged the door open with the back of his hand.

The hot copper stench of fresh blood struck him first. Then the realization: demons don't bleed and there was a hell of a lot of the stuff on the floor, thick spatters sprayed along the walls.

Cole followed the sprays of blood to the source. Dante was hooked to the wall with half a dozen twisted scythes driven through his body. Limp and bloodless, platinum hair smeared with crimson hanging over his face, and the coup-di-grace: Rebellion speared through his sternum at a grotesque angle, firmly affixing him to the statue of a demonic angel with arms outstretched, white stone painted vermillion.

"Oh, _shit_."

Unthinking. Hands grabbing at the metal weapons and hauling with all his strength. One at a time throwing them to the floor as the same curse gasped from him like a prayer. Each weapon dislodged coaxing a gush of fresh red vitae over his hands. Then his fingers closed, slippery-wet, on the pommel of Rebellion. He was shaking so bad he couldn't get the strength back into his arms - he could pull himself over a sheer precipice but for some reason he couldn't pull this fucking sword out-

"_Shit, shit, shit."_

Focus. Focus. He grabbed by the curved hand guards and gave a monumental heave - and he muttered a desperate apology as he pushed his foot against Dante's hip for leverage. With a twist, he fell backward, dropping the sword, landing on his back and Dante collided into him, heavy as a bag of sand weighing roughly 200 pounds, blood, guns, coat and all.

He was heavy, heavier than he looked. Cole pushed against the man's chest, rolling him to the floor and haplessly shoving white hair out of Dante's stony face.

"Dante." His blood was everywhere but he wasn't bleeding anymore and Cole tried to make up his frantic mind of whether or not that was really a good thing. He planted his palms on the half-demon's chest. "Son of a bitch." Volts surged through him - more than he thought a normal person could take but he had to do something.

Nothing stirred him at all.

"Dante! Wake up, you bastard!" A second, powerful pulse leapt through the half-devil's body. More volts shuddered through his arms, his fingertips, and the body - Dante's body - lurched with a sudden movement that wasn't due to shock. His eyes opened, sparked with crimson, then his chest heaved as he vomited a disconcerting volume of blood.

Cole's relief was washed away with hot, feverish fury. "Dante...? Dante! I told you to wait! I told you to fucking _wait for me_!" His voice, risen, was gravelly and harsh. He saw Dante swim in the mire of half-consciousness before he fixed his eyes on the Conduit.

True fear still gripped him. But a thick veneer of fury was making the Demon's hands clench the lapels of his coat and haul him to sit up. And shake him, hard.

Dante's wounds looked nothing more than superficial now. But Cole didn't /care/ about that. No. He dragged the man closer, locked his arm around his head and crushed him against his chest in a rough semblance of something like a hug.

"Fuck. Fuck, I thought you were dead, you bastard-"

"I'm not dead," Dante croaked but a perplexing sensation of gladness reached him through the haze of almost-deceased. And maybe some guilt. No matter how it happened, he'd been overwhelmed. And that fear- it was worse than water, worse than his own death. Dante grasped his arms and pulled them loose so he could look him in the face. "I'm sorry."

Cole couldn't seem to breathe properly, and he glared at the floor, at the muddy puddles of red that used to be in Dante's body. He'd seen lots of things. Lots of bad shit go down. It was a lot to take in even then. But this-

Dante grabbed his face and forced his gaze back onto him. Focus. Focus. "I'm sorry, Cole."

Those slate gray eyes had kindled. Something harsh and animalistic. A fierce protectiveness that stemmed from his own sense of duty. But that wasn't it. That wasn't why he couldn't live with himself if he lost this man, this one friend, in a plot so much bigger than just Conduits and Humans.

He grasped his fingers. Warm. Alive.

"I'm sorry," Dante mumbled again.

"Don't leave like that again."

The shock came from the hug and the fierce protectiveness behind it. The solid press of his face in his shoulder, his lips against his ear, hissing words, hissing something Dante couldn't understand. All he knew was that he clung back, bloodied and out of breath. Knew that as tight as Cole was holding him, he'd lost someone he wasn't holding tightly enough onto before.

As his head swam with blood loss, Cole pulled him to his feet, steadied him.

"We're leaving."

"No," Dante insisted. "Give me a second and we can finish this."

"Everyone's dead, Dante. Everyone in this city's been swallowed up by his nightmare." Cole was probably the most powerful Conduit in the world, next to the monster who had summoned up this Hellish nightmare. But right now, he was just a man, his faith in himself shaken. That fear when he had almost drowned was fully visible on his face, his bandaged fingers dark with Dante's blood, raked through his short hair with anxious panic.

Dante wiped his mouth, watching Cole pace, kicking aside rubble. He bent, sheathing Rebellion before he touched the Conduit's shoulder, turned him and clasped him hard to his chest. "We can save everyone and I sure as hell ain't going to be lost in the process, got it?"

The Conduit unfroze and nodded against his shoulder. "You're one scary son of a bitch, you know that?" When he looked at him, he saw Dante with new eyes - covered in blood, tousled, ruggedly dirty and attractive in a way that defied any heterosexual explanation. Any closer examination to how he felt at that moment had to wait until later, because suddenly the ceiling was falling toward them.


End file.
